If Greece had gone through a very normal political life, I may have not been in politics. But just the fact that I lived through huge upheavals and very difficult struggles and polarization and the barbarism of dictatorships – that made me feel that we had to change this country.
The paradigm of the ‘Aquarian Conspiracy’ sees humankind embedded in nature. It promotes the autonomous individual in a decentralized society… The new perspective respects the ecology of everything: birth, death, learning, health, family, work, science, spirituality, the arts, the community, relationships, politics.
Brazil go into every World Cup expecting to win – so when it is in Brazil, it is expected even more. You can’t understand what the World Cup means to our country. Not just the fans and players, but everybody in Brazil lets us know that they expect it. Our president, people in politics, all tell us to come back with the World Cup.
Always, with any sort of politics, which is why we haven’t got any, you get extremists, and once you get extremists, you get people doing great things and terrible things… for every following of some sort, you get followers who distort things.
When we are sick, we want an uncommon doctor; when we have a construction job to do, we want an uncommon engineer, and when we are at war, we want an uncommon general. It is only when we get into politics that we are satisfied with the common man.
Northeastern conservatism is moderate, accepts the modern welfare state, and dislikes mixing religion with politics. Western conservatism is hawkish, hates government, and embraces individual freedom. Southern conservatism is populist, draws on evangelical Christianity, and plays upon racial resentments.
Reality TV is flat with the anti-cultural imperatives of business: cheap to make, it does ideological work even when it is not giving guru status to dull business people. It fits in with capitalism’s anti-mythic myth: the idea that we have liberated ourselves from the dangerous illusions allegedly propagated by art and politics.
In politics, religion and other areas of culture, people disagree on the worth of competing ideas. There is no equivalent to the scientific method that can determine in a robust way which ideas match the real world, and which ones can be ruled out. So conflicting ideologies persist indefinitely.
Human rights, race relations, gender politics, health care, and foreign policy – it’s a lot to keep track of, and yet all of these things affect us in our daily lives. Making sense of everything requires meticulous unpacking of feelings, delicate navigation of social norms, and a community of love to help along the way.
The worsening of relations between a declining America and an internally troubled Mexico could even give rise to a particularly ominous phenomenon: the emergence, as a major issue in nationalistically aroused Mexican politics, of territorial claims justified by history and ignited by cross-border incidents.
I was looking for a new challenge and got an interest in trying to make a difference for families. You become more aware of how important families are. They are the key institution in our culture. The reason I got into politics was to try to make a difference for that key institution, whether it was tax policy, education policy, or whatever.
To work in architecture you are so much involved with society, with politics, with bureaucrats. It’s a very complicated process to do large projects. You start to see the society, how it functions, how it works. Then you have a lot of criticism about how it works.
It’s that evil twin part of me that always comes out at the absolute wrong political moment, like a demon possessing my soul; it exhibits itself as an arrogance or disdain or obnoxiousness or meanness or anger or pettiness – all traits that are lethal in politics.
The days when the words ‘Hollywood actor’ framed Ronald Reagan like bunny fingers as an ID tag and an implied insult seem far-off and quaint: nearly everybody in politics – candidate, consultant, pundit, and Tea Party crowd extra alike – is an actor now, a shameless ham in a hoked-up reality series that never stops.
What’s different now is that while political leaders used to give talking points to talk radio, now talk-radio hosts are giving talking points to political leaders. It’s all part of the suffocating spin cycle we’re in. In media, politics and publishing, the conventional wisdom is to play to this base.
I’d like to be the commissioner of tennis, but do I want to get into politics? Sometimes I have delusions of grandeur that that would be an interesting, good thing. I’m talking about actual politics, like being a congressman, but then I see how unbelievably nasty it really is, and maybe I’m not quite knowledgeable enough to actually do it.
I hate politics. It’s slimy. Any job where people pander for votes, I don’t like. The country has gotten so partisan that if you’re not on my side, you’re the enemy. The only thing I ever try to support is a third party, like Unity08. We need more parties and more choice.
My childhood, adolescence and high school days are unusually important. If there has ever been a time that I developed a uniqueness and sense of humor and the ability to organize, it was then. In those early days, I developed the skills that gave me a certain degree of success in American politics.
I follow politics in a big way, and always have since I was a kid. I’ve got opinions, but they’re opinions on both sides – not just anti-Republican, which is a real popular thing for a rap artist to do. If you dis Republicans, nobody will get mad. I think the two-party system sucks. It’s absolutely ignorant.
For Americans of the Greatest Generation that fought World War II and of the Silent Generation that came of age in the 1950s, the great moral and ideological cause was the Cold War. It gave purpose and clarity to our politics and foreign policy, and our lives.
The 1935 Social Security Act established 65 as the age of eligibility for payouts. But welfare state politics quickly becomes a bidding war, enriching the menu of benefits, so in 1956 Congress entitled women to collect benefits at 62, extending the entitlement to men in 1961.
My thing is this: You’ve got to talk about politics because it’s out there. But I try to respect the fact that even if you don’t have my views, I still respect your view. I may dog your view, but I’ll respect that you have that view. And it’s OK to come back at me to defend your view.
My father claimed no political affiliation. He supported Al Gore because he knew him as a human being. He supported Lamar Alexander, who was the governor of Tennessee, who was a Republican. It was based on the individual. He didn’t believe in politics. He based his support for someone on their heart and their integrity.
I’m just sick of the way things are. We’re in an age in which we can’t live without accepting the logic of the market. Contemporary politics is all about short-term pragmatism. We have abandoned religion and philosophy… What we have left is the automatisation of doing what the market tells us.
Especially for blacks, but also for many Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asian-Americans, group identity is now shaped more by a liberal politics in which past victimization is deferred to, and for which redress is sought with preferential treatment, than by a unified culture.
